In a computer network it is common to have a server connected to a plurality of client devices, with the server handling a variety of centralized functions such as storage, system management and access to external networks such as the Internet. In very large computer networks, involving large numbers of client devices (frequently numbering in the thousands of devices), there will be several interconnected servers, with each server connected locally to some of the client devices. This system is common when the client devices are spread geographically over several separate locations, with each server based in a specific location, and a central server being provided that is responsible for tasks such as replicating data between the local servers, to ensure synchronization of content between the servers.
The distribution of data between the servers can be a very intensive task in terms of bandwidth from the central server to the local servers and can take a relatively long time to achieve. The problem is that whenever content is changed, this change will need to be updated on all distributed servers in all locations, which is time consuming, even if the information is not being used by a certain location, it is still being saved, backed up, and updated, and there is no system in place to know which data is needed in a particular location and only saved, backup and update this data.
Most content managers (run by the central server) have the concept of being connected to streaming servers that can serve audio and video and the central content server will save information about all content in an organization, and when a certain content is known to be audio it will be saved on the audio streaming server, and video content on the video streaming server, and multiple streaming servers can exist in multiple locations to increase performance when a user is accessing the data, so the user is directed to the location closer to him/ if there is one, which increase download performance and reduce load from the central server. The solutions that exist currently will either replicate all data on several servers, or will replicate data to several servers according to the format of this data (audio, video, . . . etc.).
It is therefore an object of the invention to improve upon the known art.